Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Reader C. Andrew has alerted me to a good
piece, by rancher Keith Nantz, regarding the general situation
ranchers face in terms of intrusive government, and that has provoked
the latest standoff in Oregon. Like the author, I would describe
myself as sympathetic with the position of the occupiers, but not with
their tactics.

Just one of the things Nantz does very well
is to summarize the intrusiveness and ineptitude of the federal
government's management of much of the government-held land currently
used for grazing:

Money isn't the only challenge. Raising
cattle requires a lot of land, much more than most ranchers can afford
to own outright. I lease about a third of the space I use from private
owners. But most ranchers aren't so lucky. The federal government
controls a huge amount of land in the west (more than 50 percent in
some states, like Oregon), and many ranchers must lease that space to
create a sustainable operation.

Utilizing federal land
requires ranchers to follow an unfair, complicated and constantly
evolving set of rules. For example, a federal government agency
might decide that it wants to limit the number of days a rancher can
graze their cattle to protect a certain endangered plant or animal
species, or they might unilaterally decide that ranchers can't use as
much water as they need because of a fight over water rights. Or they
might take over land that once belonged to the state or private
individuals, imposing an entirely new set of restrictions. [bold
added, link in original omitted]

Although Nantz is silent
on the question of whether the government ought to hold all this land
or set these rules, he reminds me very much of a favorite quote of
mine regarding the ineptitude
of central planning with the following passage, especially when
considered against the backdrop of the difficulties and long hours of
his chosen occupation:

I saw this play out firsthand when
the federal government considered listing the sage grouse, a
chicken-like bird, as endangered. That regulation would have shrunk
the amount of land where ranchers could graze cattle, putting many out
of business and decimating the industry. To avoid this, ranchers like
myself and local officials spent months meeting with federal officials
looking for compromise. We ultimately found middle ground. But we
already have an enormous workload in our daily lives. The pressure of
having to drop everything to lobby against a rule (which happens more
often than you'd think) is a tremendous burden.

Most of the
time, those regulations are written by people with no agriculture
experience, and little understanding of what it takes to produce our
nation's food. The agencies that control these lands can add
burdensome regulations at any time. Often, they will begin
aggressively enforcing them before ranchers have a chance to
adjust. [links omitted]

Again, Nantz is silent on whether
the government has any business making all these rules, but it is
clear that this situation threatens the livelihoods of many, as well
as our food supply. (Does anyone doubt the same kind of thing is
happening nationwide, and across industries?)

The only
things I would add to Nantz's piece -- righteous indignation and a
recommendation for a better tactic than armed confrontation with the
government -- I addressed
during Cliven Bundy's standoff a couple of years ago:

I
think that the government's ownership of all this land is improper and
that the [Bureau of Land Management] ought to be abolished, but the
solution to that problem is not an anarchic revolt. There are ways to
change the law, and they involve persuading others that the change
ought to be made. I also agree wholeheartedly with the local,
interviewed for the news article, that, "You just can't let this go
by, or everybody is going to be like, 'If Bundy can break the law, why
can't I?'" [link omitted]

Improper government increasingly
brushes with making life impossible, but until significant numbers of
people see that this is morally wrong, the situation will not
change. (At best, they'll seek to do the impossible with "better
people," for example.) The government's
job is to protect us from the predations of criminals and foreign
invaders, and to provide an objective means of settling honest
disputes. Part of that job is to get out of the way, which, is
made difficult or impossible by, say, pretending to be a land owner or
dictating how people are to run their own businesses (beyond
prohibiting harm to others). Government land management is poor, but
this is to be expected from the fact that such a mission is contrary
to its proper purpose.